Route reliability record
EUG→DEN
Eugene to Denver
- Flights
- 1,271
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 996 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B+, 2 points better than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in five arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by a little over an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,271 EUG to DEN flights, of which United Airlines flew 728 at 84.9% on time.
Best time to fly EUG to DEN: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 92.7% of the time and Tuesday flights 83.3%, against 79.2% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
79.2%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,251 completed flights
Avg delay
76 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
0.47%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
United
84.9% on time across 728 flights
These figures cover 1,271 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. The median arrival is 6 minutes early, which is the part an average hides: most flights here are fine, and the on-time rate is decided by a tail of badly late ones. On-time means under 15 minutes late, the DOT's own threshold.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on EUG to DEN
The choice of carrier is not cosmetic here. United Airlines arrives on time 84.9% of the time; Southwest Airlines manages 72.8%. Sample sizes sit next to every figure, because a two-point gap across 427 flights means less than a ten-point one.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlines | 728 | 84.9% | 99 min | 0.41% | B+ |
| Southwest Airlines | 427 | 72.8% | 61 min | 0.23% | C+ |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 116 | 67.5% | 59 min | 1.72% | C |
The spread between United and Southwest is 12 points, wide enough that it should decide the booking. On a hundred trips that is 12 more arrivals inside the on-time window.
Best ways to make this trip
The most reliable ways to fly Eugene to Denver
Every airline on this route, ranked by how often a scheduled flight actually operated and arrived on time, with its best departure time and most punctual flight number. No nearby airport pair beat these.
| Option | Airline | Success | On time | Cancelled | Best departure | Most punctual flight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. EUG → DENEugene to Denver | United Airlines | 84.6% | 84.9% | 0.41% | 5am–8am, Sun | — |
| 2. EUG → DENEugene to Denver | Southwest Airlines | 72.6% | 72.8% | 0.23% | 5am–8am, Wed | — |
Success is the share of scheduled flights that operated and arrived less than 15 minutes late, so a cancelled flight counts against it. “(route)” means the best time comes from every carrier on the route rather than this airline alone.
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 35 points, against 12 points between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am495 flights92.7%
- 8am–11am—
- 11am–2pm528 flights76.3%
- 2pm–5pm248 flights58.2%
- 5pm–8pm—
- 8pm–5am—
Scale runs 50% to 100%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 92.7% of the time, against 58.2% for the afternoon window. That is 35 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 11am–2pm window is the busiest, with 528 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 29 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
July is the worst month at 66.1% on time, 29 points below March, the best at 94.6%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. July was the busiest month here, with 128 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 83.3% on time and Friday the weakest at 72.8%. 11 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Carriers report a reason for every delay minute they cause, in five DOT categories. The split below is by minutes, not by number of flights, so a handful of very long weather delays weighs as much as many short ones. It covers 20,000 reported delay minutes.
- 36%Late-arriving aircraft
- 33%Carrier
- 28%National Airspace System
- 3%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
36% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 20,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 11 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 19,819 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 92.7% on time here.
Cancellations are rare at 0.47%, below the national 1.81% and low enough to earn the plus on the grade. Roughly one flight in 100 is called off; the risk here is arriving late, not not arriving.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
7.7% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last a little over an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 996 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 73.5% on time across 1,272 flights, 6 points below this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 6 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,271 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in DEN after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. March runs 94.6% on time and July 66.1%, a swing of 29 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of July before you think about anything else. 1,251 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
EUG to DEN questions
How often is EUG to DEN delayed?
About one flight in five arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 20.8% of the 1,271 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by a little over an hour on average.
Which airline is most reliable on EUG to DEN?
United Airlines leads at 84.9% on time across 728 flights. Southwest Airlines is at the other end on 72.8%, a gap of 12 points. Sample size matters as much as the percentage: a rate built from a few hundred flights moves around far more than one built from ten thousand.
What time of day has the fewest delays on EUG to DEN?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 92.7% on time. The 2pm–5pm window is the weakest at 58.2%, 35 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.
How bad are July delays on EUG to DEN?
July is the weakest month at 66.1% on time, compared with 94.6% in March. Across the year that is 29 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
- DEN to EUG — the return legseparate record
- Denver International (DEN) delay statistics
- United Airlines on EUG to DEN84.9%
- Southwest Airlines on EUG to DEN72.8%
- SkyWest Airlines on EUG to DEN67.5%
- EUG to SEA, a related route87.8%
- PHX to DEN, a related route77.2%
- EUG to SFO, a related route72.0%
- United Airlines on-time record84.9%
- Southwest Airlines on-time record72.8%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record67.5%
- Same route, different airline: where the carrier you pick matters most
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
Direction matters. EUG to DEN and DEN to EUG are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.